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Downgrades to the credit worthiness of governments and corporates accounted for 93% of global rating changes in the first three months of the year, the highest quarterly figure recorded by Standard & Poor’s, highlighting the scale of the worldwide debt burden compared with previous recessions.

The previous record of 91% was set in the fourth quarter of last year. The latest percentage figure outstrips the 86% of all downgrades that governments and corporates accounted for during the recession of 1991, and also the 89% in 2001.

Standard & Poor’s published its findings in a report entitled "Global Corporate and Sovereign Rating Actions: First-Quarter 2009 (Premium)". Only 7% of all the governments and corporates covered in the report were upgraded.

Diane Vazza, head of Standard & Poor's global fixed income research group, said: "This is the highest level on record since our data series began in 1987, despite having two other recessionary periods in this time frame."

In the US, downgrades represented 95% of all rating actions, compared with 94% in Europe and 93% for emerging markets.

Downgrades of financial institutions also continued in the first quarter with 57 downgrades of banks globally or 84% of the total rating actions, while there were 47 downgrades of other financials or 89% of all rating changes.

Global corporate defaults were also up to 62 issuers in the first quarter, which is more than three times the number in the same period a year ago.

One positive sign was that the number of sovereign rating downgrades dropped to 10 in the first quarter of this year, compared with 17 in the final three months of last year. Four of these were in western Europe - Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Greece - and five in emerging Europe - Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Croatia and Ukraine.